Twenty

This party is blowing up! Bodies and techno beats. Oh my god, the music is so loud you can’t even hear it! Rather you feel it coursing entirely through you. NNTZZTS NNntz nnntzs  NNNTZZ nntzss!

And it’s a rave, so you flail your body around like a marionette on a string, but you’re your own master and there’s an elated sensation of freedom resonating in your teeth, in your fingertips. It fills you, fluid in your bones.

Even Jason is tearing the floor apart. His face is concentrated and serene like I’ve never seen him. He jumps into the air and kicks his legs and for a moment I pretend that he must be happy right now.

I want him to be this way. Always.

We all came out wearing our favorite flannels. It’s a rave, so there’s little underneath. Aiko has a black and white flannel, buttons open, over a neon pink bra and she wears tiny white shorts. Jason bears a bare chest under his lumber-jack flannel and he wears his tight punk rock pants that make him look like a Korean pop star. He’s dangerous and beautiful, and girls keep dancing around him. I guess to the rest of them, it just looks like I’m one of them.

Jason sips some Jack from a flask he keeps tucked away in his shirt pocket, letting Aiko take a swig. I bet they’re gonna hook up tonight, she doesn’t have a boyfriend right now. She hands me the flask.

I wanna get fucked up. I wanna be a mess.

What if, for once, Jason has to take care of me? I drain his flask dry.

The music changes to a slower, more visceral beat. The chorus sounds like sirens wailing, and the light show slows to match. The whole room flashes gold, silver, blue, and sea green. An acid trip in fairy land.

When I accidentally slam into a couple sucking face, they don’t even care. Don’t even stop. There’s such desperation to the way they cling to each other, scrambling to a deeper closeness, clawing at each other’s skin.

There is something so beautiful about frenzy, no?

Aiko is dancing with some cute hipster looking kid with oxfords, a tight band tee-shirt, a Pokémon wrist watch, and a crater face like he used to have pretty bad acne. I turn to look over to Jason, to see which of the girls he chose. I almost bump into him. He’s right behind me.

“Ah!”

“Sorry,” he grins. Slow loris grin. Damn.

We start dancing. I’m amazed at how smoothly we get into it. When you and I tried to dance for the first time, we were so nervous. We fumbled all over each other. Cute and sweet and perfect, in our own Avery and Riot way. Somehow, it isn’t weird with Jason’s hands on my waist. Our bodies slam together. I’m much shorter than him, but we’re staring right at each other. I can’t tear my eyes away.

I feel my face flush.

“It’s hot in here,” I complain, shouting as loud as I can. I wonder if he hears me.

He twirls me around and pulls me into him. I slam into his hips with my ass. Gripping my waist with clawed fingers, he holds me to him, and he leads me with a sway.

The song is electric, it’s mystical, it’s pulsing. I close my eyes, and watch the lights disrupting the blackness of my eyelids.

He moves his hands up my body, and rests them on my clavicle. He pulls down the collar of my flannel, pulls it down around my shoulders.

Jason grips my throat, tilts my head back. He pushes my hair away from the nape of my neck. Goosebumps rise on my skin under the fleeting touch of his fingertips. He kisses the sensitive area between my ear and my jaw bone. I could collapse. I lean further into him, open lips. I just want to taste the salt of his skin. Fuck, since when do I want that? Since just this moment?

He pulls away. He shimmies and shakes behind me, and we follow the same hectic rhythm.  We still dance together, but our bodies aren’t so close.

I just think, you know how I like it. Keep doing that. Come on, keep doing that.

I glance behind me, straining my neck to see up at him. Please, please just keep doing that. He looks out, past me. My skin heats up where the ghost of his lips lingers.

Want, want, want. Brevity. Unresolved. I’m left wondering if it even happened at all.

I’m left wondering why I
need it
to happen so badly.